January 21

Just wanted to give a head's up on some significant changes before they go live in a few weeks.

One very common request we've had from users is for the option to do "Asynchronous Play" which means the ability to play someone even if they don't stay online. So you can just login when you have time, play one turn, then log-off and the game keeps going.

We've always planned to have this, and now we're finally on the way to having it done! This is not something Steam supports, unfortunately, so we have to create our own game-servers and replace a bunch of the built in Steam networking stuff.

== What changes will I see? ==

You will now be able to play with people even when you are not both online the whole time. This is sort of like "play-by-mail" versions of Chess. This should lead to more online play, as well as some MUCH more challenging matches for those who want them.

When you go to play an online game for the first time after the change, you will be prompted to set up a BlueLine Cloud account. This is a free account, and all it does is tell our game servers who you are on Steam. This is just a technical limitation. This is very similar to the PlayFab signup when playing Planetary Annihilation.

If everything works as planned, you'll never have to log into BlueLine Cloud manually.

Email: When you provide an email address during BlueLine Cloud account, we'll NEVER sell that address to 3rd parties. We WILL use it for sending you notifications such as "It's your turn" or "You have 1 more hour to play a turn or you forfeit!". You'll be able to turn off/on each notification at any time. We'll also put the email addr on our BlueLine announcement list which is super sparse (I think we've sent 2 messages in 4 years) and you can, of course, unsubscribe at any time.

When you set up an online game, there will now be a Game Setting for Turn Timeout. If a player takes longer than this amount of time, they forfeit the game. We currently plan to allow this to go as high as 30 days per turn and as low as 1 minute per turn. This is not meant to be an implementation of "speed" games or "timed" games (that is likely to come later), this is just a way to prevent people from having games go on literally forever if they're losing.

The timeout settings will show up in the list of online games. It'll say something like "7D/turn" which means you can take no more than 7 days per turn.

Some fixes: Steam was always really bad at actually reporting which games were in progress. Now, we're in control of that code so it's likely to be way more accurate.

Some potential bugs: Please keep in mind, we're running our own game-servers now, and there are likely to be hiccups and potentially even some server down-time. We'll be doing our best to keep them up as much as humanly possible, but our game-servers are about 10 years younger than Valve's so realistically, we'll probably mess up occasionally before everything is perfectly stable. Please be patient with us & report any problems as soon as you see them!

== Future Coolness that this enables ==

Once we have our own game-servers this paves the way for several other really cool features that we've always wanted. These include: game histories that you can review turn-by-turn as well as super-cross-platform play so that you can play games against platforms other than Steam (PC/Mac/Linux) such as iOS/Android. This will make an even larger pool of players online at any given time. All of these features will take a really long time, but having our own game servers is a huge step in that direction.

== Questions? ==

If you have any questions, please let us know. In the meantime, we're going to go back to working on this (we've been cranking on this for 3 weeks so far, and have maybe another 3 weeks until we're done).

Reviews

“I'm a really big fan of Hive”
Jerry Holkins (TychoBrahe from Penny Arcade on the physical version of Hive)

“So let it be said that Hive, a simple adaption of a cult board game, is the game that ended the Leaderboard’s losing streak.”
Approved – Indie Gamer Chick

About This Game

Officially licensed version of the "Mensa Select" award-winning board game!

Hive is a board game with a difference. There is no board! The pieces are added to the playing area thus creating the board. As more and more pieces are added the game becomes a fight to see who can be the first to capture (surround) the opposing Queen Bee.

Features:

Play locally or online.

Play against the Computer - AI with five difficulty levels.

Includes "hot-seat"/"pass-n-play" mode for players with who want to share one mouse/keyboard or gamepad.

Full 3D with camera-control

Switch seamlessly between playing with mouse/keyboard and gamepad.

Dozens of Steam Stats & Achievements.

Same expansions as table-top version: the Pillbug, the Ladybug, and the Mosquito expansions are available as DLC.

Each expansion can be turned on/off for any individual game. Play with these pieces online even if your opponent does not own the expansions! (they will also get to use the expansions during the game)

The Hive board game is a winner of many awards including "Mensa Select", "Dr. Toy: Product of Excellence", "Spiele Hits", "International Gamers Awards", and "Juego del año".

Finally the game is working fine as the online matching.... well done Blue Line Games !!! For those that hasn´t meet this game know that you are really missing a great one !!! give it a chance and accept the challenge from this pretty cool abstract strategy game

A favourite abstract tabletop game, the Windows implementation of Hive is a brain-burner that can be played in as little as five minutes while still providing a strong strategic gaming experience similar to Chess.

This isn't the first implementation of Hive for the screen, including iOS and Android versions. The iOS version is fairly well-done, but the Android version left something to be desired. In comparing both to this version, this version comes out dominating, not simply because of the extra features and ease of implementing a Windows game, but also for a well-designed, slick game and interface.

The game is best suited to board gamers, particularly fans of abstract games. The addition of the Mosquito, Ladybug and Pillbug expansions makes for an even nicer gaming experience. Having the option to play vanilla Hive or with any number of the expansions turned on makes for a great game to have in any abstract fan's collection.

Play online or against the AI, which has a range of skill levels from the incredibly random to the master Hive player.

Clever abstract strategy with a solid AI. I'm seeing people compare this to chess, but I'm not getting the same feel- it's got a very different mood and rhythm, fast and surprisingly brutal. Great game.

When one measures the strength of a game that is an adaption of a previous title to a new medium, it becomes vital that one takes into account the strengths and weaknesses of both the original and the quality of the implementation of the new game. The version of Hive I played is a pre-release version and thus subject to changes, but with 6 hours under my belt I feel I am able to give at least a reasonable assessment of what BlueLine Game Studios have done with Gen42 Games' work.

Published in 2001, the original Hive is a strategy board game without a board, like with Settlers of Catan the game uses a hex based tile system to create the environment of play, but Hive differs greatly from the beloved German classic. Hive has no fixed play area, it's tiles are it's units and can be played and moved based on a very Chess-like set of structured rules. The game is an enjoyable and varied one which lets players go through a game quickly against their opponent with no need to set up the board or learn too many rules. An additional bonus to the game is that it is largely language-agnostic, once the rules are known nothing in the game requires any kind of reading to cause issues between players.

This PC version of the game sticks well to the original game and implements the ruleset in a very by-the-book manner that gives no room for house rules, like modifying the unit list of the two players, which is a double edged sword - on one hand you aren't overloaded with a multitude of options in your face from the onset, but you are also limited in what you can do with the game, there are no handicaps. The game comes with the original Hive's expansion, the Pillbug, a single unit that most players would make a cardboard stand-in for when playing the physical game, in the game as purchasable DLC, which most PC gamers will agree has a sting to it, after seeing the PC version of Settlers of Catan, called simply Catan, one would hope all developers put as much love into their titles, including all expansions and many differing options for how to play.

Artificial Intelligence in this game on the lower levels is not overly resource hungry, but suffers from being a little daffy at times, on the highest level the opposite is true however. When playing on the 5th difficulty level you can occasionally wait a couple of minutes as it plays out possible moves it can take before settling on one and it makes for a much better fight, if a sometimes boring wait.

The musical selection is somewhat boring and repetitive, the game has a single and rather short track that repeats before you eventually disable audio playback after hour one of the song playing with your mind. One assumes it is a placeholder awaiting a little more variety in the playlist.

Interface for the game is a rather bare-bones at this stage, clean and responsive, but not overly attractive. The camera auto-zooms and includes the entire play area in your view, this is again both a good and bad thing, as I could find no means to change my camera angle, which is helpful in a game when you are in a difficult situation and want to get a fresh perspective on the game. Tool tips are in your face, unavoidable, and unclosable, you have to wait on them to fade away on their own, which is quite bothersome when you only want to see if a unit can move or not. There is presently no customization to the game, one cannot change the game's colours, nor use alternative tilesets to make the game more aesthetically appealing.

As there are no options to change resolution, modify volume, go to fullscreen instead of windowed mode, or change the graphics of the tiles, the game feels a little more limited than what many PC gamers might expect or even demand from a game. But the game is enjoyable in spite of it's presently simple presentation, one hopes that BlueLine will take what they have and move forward with the ability to control the camera, to change tilesets, unit lists and add a little more polish to the visual and auditory aspects of the title. I can easily say the game is a good one, I am just unsure if Steam users will be able to get past it's aesthetic limitations to the boardgame underneath. For strategy board game fans, this is likely a no-brainer to pick it up, but others will probably be less enthusiastic about the title as when it comes to boardgame adaptions, PC gamers tend to be more into Axis and Allies level complexity, and less into Chess.

Genre - Board Game ConversionThis is a 2 player game that can be played against adjustable difficulty AI, Hot Seat or Online, this covers all bases unless aliens exist or we can some how get monkeys invoilved. It is a game that MENSA backed and I can see why. It has the mechanics to make each game a quick strategic test, the more moves you think ahead the more chance you have to win. Each bug moves differently (like chess) and the aim is to suround the enemy queen. They have included many achievements for those who are interested and different bugs have been added to allow customised games and re-playability.

Análisis en español aquíI can barely recomend this game. It is good but a small amount of issues makes it not so pleasurable as it should.

*IntroductionFor start I should explain what this game is about, without going into details about the rules and moves of each type of piece.Hive is a well known tabletop game for two player. It doesn't use a board, instead players take turns to place or move their hexagonal pieces (representing bugs) contacting one another and thus forming the playing area (hive). Each type of piece has its own move (like chess). The goal is surround the opponent's queen bee while we protect our own queen.Hive is a very good game, awarded over here and over there, by these and those people. The description of the Steam store handles make it clear that it is a awarded game. It's a game with not too much rules to learn, easy to play. Still the game has a lot of strategy to consider. Move or place? Attack or defend? Which and how many bugs play or conserve?

*GameplayThe game stays true to the rules of the tabletop game and therefore it's played practically the same, except for the difference we not have to wonder if every move is valid. Just click on on of your pieces and it will be show the places where we can place it with another click.About the AI, it can take too long time to decide to move, especially in higher difficulties, so the match will always be interrupted. Also the AI is not very smart in higher difficulties.

*Graphic user interfaceThe menu is simple and minimalist. That is usually good, but this time it's taken to the extreme scarcing in basic options such as selecting screen resolution.When a match is created you can choose how to compete with our rival (remember that it's a two players game). We can play against artificial intelligence on 5 difficulties, on line through Steam, and two local modes, each player with its own peripheral (keyboard and gamepad) or sharing the same peripheral (pass and play).During the match, the playground is a wooden surface, on which we will place the pieces. The pieces are placed or moved, first by clicking them and then clicking on one of the marked areas. The pieces can't be dragged.We can control the point of view but not the zoom, which is automatically adjusted to make visible all pieces.

*AudioIt can be summarized as boring and repetitive. Little choice and very boring. I know it must not distract players, but it is soooo boring that is annoying and you will end up turning it off. As a curiosity I can mention that some sound effects and music are free from Freesound.org and OpenGameArt.

* Online gamingAs multiplayer game, online gaming should be an important part. In this section we can create and join public and private lobby, although the private ones can only be joined by invitation.It has an ELO rating system (like chess and go). This is a scoring system to calculate the skill level of the players. So when creating a game we can choose whether we want it to be "rated game" or not. That is if we want to bear in mind that rating system for the match or not.It doesn't have online player waiting to play. It's one of those games you must play with friends since you can not find random players.An important negative point is that the online game often fails, forcing you to restart it. That doesn't always happen, only in matches you think you are going to win. I don't know how that affects your score because I have not played with that option enabled, but I suspect it should not be good since my opponent informed me that the game notify him I abandoned the match when it failed and we had to start another one.One last detail in this section. The game requires Steam to play online. An important detail to note as it is advertised as DRM-free on the dev's website via Humble widget.

*DLCSomething you should know is that the game is incomplete, it has missing pieces. These missing pieces are sold separately as DLC. As a result you get an incomplete game and additional parts cost almost as much as the base game ($10 base game and $3 each of 3 DLC, $19 total), although there are discounts for purchasing bundles. Unfortunately, developers planned to sell the game this way from the begining. Probably they developed the game thinking about the DLC. They justify this by comparing it with the physical version of the game (a comparison that does not seem appropriate to me). As if that were not enough to buy an intentionally incomplete game, each DLC gives only one piece which is distasteful (remember that it's about pieces of a tabletop game, not hats or skins). These extra pieces already existed at the time of game release, they didn't have to think and create new pieces.If you own a DLC, you can use it in a match although your competitor doesn't own it, both player obtaining additional parts. That means that content is included for all in the game and is not an optional extra download, but is locked until you shell out more money. Note that we talk about pieces of a tabetop game and not about hats or cosmetic items, for a paid game, not a F2P in which would be acceptable.

Pros:+ It's Hive and maintains its rules.+ Online multiplayer.+ It has artificial intelligence so that those who are "forever alone" can enjoy it.

Cons:- DLC based business model. The game is incomplete and you must pay almost double for the extra pieces (every DLC offers one miserable piece). $19 for the full game is very overpriced for a game like this with all the drawbacks.- Repetitive and boring music.- Few options. Not much to modify to your pleasure. You can not change the game screen resolution, to do this you must change the desktop resolution. You can not control the zoom.- Artificial intelligence is slow. This is more noticeable in higher difficulties.- No online players (though no fault of the game).- DLC. I have already said it, no?- It is only available in English. It is not necessary to know english to play if you know the rules. Conversely, if you do not know them, you must learn them in english. Language can be a barrier and this may impair the growth of the community.- Online matches usually fail.- No low-end system friendly.

I should mention that many of the comments and analysis I read are outdated. Some corrections:- Camara and perspective. Now we can move the camera, but the zoom is adjusted automatically.- Options. You can play in windowed mode or full screen and can also change the volume of music (can be lowered to not hear it) and sound effects. Can not change the resolution yet.- Appearance and aesthetics. Now you can choose the tileset between 3 options: Standard (with 3D bugs), Classic (as the classical version of the game) and Carbon (black and white as carbon edition physical version). Pop-ups are less obtrusive and pieces no longer float, now are sustained on a wooden table.- Artificial intelligence. It has been improved both in their deciciones as in the time it takes. It is still slow in higher difficulties.- Missing pieces. The missing pieces are sold as DLC.- It is not DRM-free. No, it's not. It is advertised as such but to play online you need Steam. You can copy the program files but only work to play without internet connection.

Edit: Since I wrote this review, there was an update that fixes some online problems (some of which I was a victim). I didn't test it yet.

This game is like the original board game in play. You can enjoy the same tightly woven gameplay as the original anywhere you can connect to the internet, and to boot it's cheaper than the boardgame also.

Pretty easy to learn, but to become a real master might take more time for those who are challenged by strategy games like chess. Find a friend who likes this style of game and get all those achievements!

Strongly recommended!Especially for people who like mentally demanding board games like chess...

It definitely needs some more polish in some areas, more comfort, more options and so on, but the base game works great, i have lots of fun with it, the computer is very strong and theres online play with elo ranking

I bought this game because I have really been getting into the abstract strategy genre of board games recently. I'd heard mixed reviews from many sources about this game, so I wasn't sure if I was going to like it or not. I LOVE it. It's very well-designed and fun to play. It's like chess in a lot of ways, but it's more than a chess variant. I highly recommend this game!

I love this game. Both digital and analog. It's come a long way as far as performance since the early days. I'll spare you the bug jokes. My only complaint is the hardware requirements. They should offer a minimal interface option so you can play on an older machine. Being pretty isn't everything.

Aside from that. It's great. You can turn off the music because that gets old after a while. Local and net play. It's great as a teacher for the physical version.

Hive has received the notoriously hard to get Indie Gamer Chick Approved seal. This seal was awarded to the Xbox Live Indie Games version of Hive. The Steam release improved upon that with an updated look, more game modes and improved online play!

The original physical version of Hive was the recipient of several awards, including the "Dr. Toy: Product of Excellence", "Spiele Hits", "International Gamers Awards", "Juego del año", and most notably the "Mensa Select" award.